And when you think about
like you think about people that you know that have failed.
It’s probably going to be in one of three areas.
It's either money or power or sexuality.
It's like those three things are the way are the places where the devil trips
people up.
Well,
Merle Burkholder, welcome back to the Anabaptist Perspectives podcast.
It has been, let's see, five years or so since we had you on the.
Yeah, on Anabaptist perspectives.
so it's great to have you down here in Tennessee in our little studio here.
just a little bit about yourself.
So you've spent quite a few decades in ministry, something like 45 years.
You've been in church leadership, done a fair amount of teaching, Bible teaching
and so forth.
But there's a particular topic that is
feels like,
is gaining a lot of awareness lately.
And that's the moral and ethical failure.
There's a lot of high profile cases it feels like in the last number of years,
we've seen that within different ministry leaders and so forth.
So would you want to spend a moment just introducing that topic
and then we'll get into it?
Sure. Yeah.
There's, like you say, there's just been some high profile
failures and, you know, the distressing thing about it is that it
gives so much just cause for people to discredit the church
and and just,
turn against Christ.
It gives people a reason to say, well, that's why I'm not a Christian
or that's why I don't get involved in the church,
because you're just the same as everybody else.
And and
people are hypocrites.
And so, and it also destroys.
trust within the church because you start to wonder, well,
can I really trust this person? Like, what about them?
And what don't I know about their life?
And here I'm, I'm following somebody or I'm really,
you know, like somebody's writing or teaching and.
But what don't I know about them.
And, and so it just becomes and it causes
when there's failure, it just causes so much pain and and
and basically what it does to the name of Christ is what's,
what's the big thing, really?
yeah.
and for me, it's, I really care about it because I care about the church.
I care about Christianity and and the reputation of Christ.
But also, for me, it gets really personal because my, my father was a man
that I really looked up to, and he he was a good, good man.
I he was my hero.
Like, I wanted to be like him. Right.
And so I just knew
when I was a young boy that he was the person that I wanted to be like.
And I looked at the way he related to people.
I looked at the way he did things and and I wanted to be be like him.
And,
then when I was about, 35 years old,
I came
we were in Pennsylvania and I had been at my cousin's house.
Our family was at my cousin's house for dinner and
came back to my parents house and walked in the door,
and my mother was gone at the time and,
with my sisters somewhere.
And so my dad was home alone.
And when I walked in, I could tell something wasn't right.
And my family went to bed.
And then my dad started telling me a story that I didn't know
I couldn't believe.
I didn't know if it was true.
I didn't know if he had lost his mind, I wasn't sure, but he started telling me
that. But it was true.
And he was telling me he had been living part time with another woman and
and he was drinking and into smoking and
pornography and this and,
yeah, it just
it just knocked the props right out from under me.
I just didn't I didn't know how to go on and
and then all of a sudden, here was this person that I had wanted to be like.
And all of a sudden, I don't want to be be like him.
And so I had to look at my own life
and figure out, like, so what things did I copy that
are might be flaws and how do I go on
living and just the pain of.
Of being the son of this man that that had this failure.
And I started to feel like, okay, I'm 35
if I'm going to do what he did when I'm 60,
I should quit now because it's like you're going downhill and you lose your brakes.
The sooner you hit the ditch, the better.
Better it is because the crash is going to be bigger later on.
And so I was I was thinking well maybe I should just quit.
And I didn't know quite what that look like, but
I, I was really thinking,
you know, here I am trying to do things for Christ and, and
but maybe I should just quit.
And then one of my friends sat me down and said, Merle, like, don't do that.
Like you.
Your dad failed.
And if you quit now, then you're going to let the devil
win two victories out of one failure.
And so don't do that.
You need to figure out
how to live life and how to do things and just keep on.
And so that's kind of what I did.
But it so the whole subject, like there's people who feel like,
well, you know, I can I can look at pornography
and it doesn't really and there's no victims.
Right.
It's just but.
The pain of, of
of failure, the pain of moral failure.
It just affects so many people.
And I've talked to men that,
you know, the
the most painful experience of their life is when they're father confessed
being in pornography or moral failure, or some kind of ethical failure.
And, to think about that.
So with that
I guess the obvious question is, you know, how do we protect ourselves
from being that next person, you know, who brings that
reproach on the name of Christ.
And You're feeling of it just knocking all the props out from under under you
and then saying, well, I should just quit now because this is just too dangerous.
Or, maybe not dangerous, but yeah, that imagery of losing the brakes
as you're going downhill, I, I've heard similar sentiments from other people.
And so how how do we avoid that?
How do we do we continue going on, but also
how do we protect ourselves from being that next person who does fail?
Well, I've, I had to look at at my marriage.
I had to look at, my relationships,
that I have with other people and just
think about,
what boundaries do I have in my life.
but one of the big things is just taking responsibility
for for my own life and for how I deal with, with desires.
And, you know, it's because so many people
that that fall into moral failure,
they shift the blame to somebody else, like, it's my wife's fault
or it's it's society's
fault or, it's, you know, it's not me.
I mean, you you got to do what you got to do or.
Yeah, well, you know,
it's somebody else's fault and taking responsibility,
saying, no, I am responsible for my life
and how I handle the challenges of my life.
So my challenges with,
my challenges with moral
purity, my challenges with with how I handle
sexual desire are not my wife's problem.
They they're my issue.
And I need to take responsibility for those my struggle with,
with moral purity
and with what I look at is not society's problem.
It's not like the, the it's not women's problem.
It's my.
I have to take responsibility.
This is this is my, I need to deal with.
I need to be a man.
And I need to take responsibility for how I deal
with the with the challenges of my life.
And and desire isn't the problem.
Because, in Buddhist thought, it's kind of like, well,
if you can eliminate desire, then you can eliminate suffering.
And to live is to suffer and and suffering is a result of desire.
And so if you can eliminate desire,
if you don't want anything, then you're never disappointed, right?
So, So.
But Christian thought isn't to eliminate desire.
It's the transformation of desire.
And where our, our hearts are transformed and we're and
and if anything, in Christian thought, there's Desires are heightened.
And Jesus said, I've come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.
So it's like we want the things we want even more.
And we're we're anticipating good things.
And the call of God is a call to to more and to higher.
And and so it's not it's not that we're trying to eliminate desire.
So with, if I have a challenge with my weight
and I'm trying to not be overweight,
I don't berate myself for being hungry.
Like, I don't say I have to stop being hungry.
Like this is.
So I wake up in the morning. I'm hungry again.
I'm a failure.
Like, I just like, I just have to stop being hungry.
And I pray and ask, God, don't ever let me be hungry again.
But it's, desire isn't the problem.
But it's like I have to meet that desire in healthy ways
I'm going to take responsibility to meet them in in healthy ways,
I think is one of the one of the key things
yeah, that that was one of the questions like,
what are the things we need to recognize to move,
to move ourselves to a higher plane?
I guess I'm trying to think how to even phrase it, but,
to remove these obstacles.
And so you mentioned your responsibility.
Taking responsibility for our actions.
are there other things?
Yeah. Another one is accountability.
Having people that we're really talking to and who know what we're thinking
and who know what we're experiencing, and I believe that every person ought
to have somebody that has their thumb on our spiritual pulse that just knows,
how we're doing and that if we start,
if we start going, getting off track,
they're going to be able to detect that and say, what's happening with you.
And and where we're really being honest with what we're
what we're experiencing and what's going on in our lives.
And I'm not talking about sharing lots of personal details
with large groups of people, but just a couple of people that really know
who we are.
One of the things that happened with my dad is,
he was, from a fairly large family,
had a lot of brothers, and, but his brothers had all died except one.
There was only one.
One brother left and he had moved
kind of out of his, the community where he was had grown up.
So a lot of his childhood friends, he wasn't close to anymore.
And he really wound up in a situation where he didn't have
people that were really close to him, and
he was on the road as a salesman,
so he didn't have a lot of accountability for his time and what he was doing.
And, and that opened up the door
for him to get to do things that he shouldn't have been doing.
But he didn't have anybody that really
that really knew him well enough to know what was going on in his life.
And our minds are so deceptive.
Like, we can we can legitimize,
we can rationalize things and say, well,
you know, like McDonald's had a great advertising slogan
a couple decades ago, or it was like, you deserve a break today. And
and we can convince ourselves I deserve it.
Like my wife was mean to me, or she said things
that hurt me or I,
I had a disappointment in life.
And so I need comfort.
I need and I deserve something.
And our brains can just convince us that it's okay.
And and when we when we just think our own thoughts and we don't have anybody
giving us feedback on what we're thinking, we can get way off, way off track.
And we need people that we're talking to that
Give us feedback and tell us where we're where we're wrong,
because people don't go out and just do stuff that they know is wrong
or say, well, I'm going to go do something stupid today.
They they have they have ways of saying, this is what I need to do or this is okay.
That's a really good point, I don't know.
I think about it.
You wouldn't hear someone wake up in the morning
and be like, I'm going to do this terrible thing. This dumb...
Like knowing.
This is going to destroy my life, but I'm going to go out and do it.
Exactly. I'm going to do it anyways.
and that makes a lot of sense because, humans are a little funny that way,
where we can, seems to me at least we can convince ourselves of most anything.
And it's like you basically have to have other people in your life
that are close enough to you to to point out, wait,
you're going, You're off track there.
Is this another way of describing how we all need community?
As in, we're not little islands of isolation,
but we need other believers around us that we can trust.
It feels like it's a fundamental in this.
yeah.
Is that is am I am I going the right direction there?
Absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah.
It's why we need people in our lives, and people that know what we're thinking
so that, we don't give ourselves permission
to do things that that we really ought, not,
ought not to do.
as this sense of maybe being vulnerable
with the right people around, like,
what's the what's the word?
open enough about our struggles to people you can trust or,
yeah, that's powerful stuff.
And one of the problems is,
in the church can be that we feel like, well, nobody else has this.
Yeah. Struggle.
I'm the only one.
And if I say this, people are going to be like, oh,
that's.
Yeah, he's really Dealing with something bad,
and when in fact our our experience is pretty much the same.
And and when we start talking to each other honestly and openly
about what's going on in our minds and in our lives, it's not that different.
because it's just.
Well, it's the human experience is is pretty universal.
So are there other things
that we need to recognize to, to help and to help avoid these failures.
Well, another another important piece I think is, is just finding
a place of stability and having boundaries and saying here
these are things that I don't do, and we need to know ourselves
well enough to know what those boundaries need to be.
They may not be the same for every person.
So there's things that I may need to recognize.
Others may do that, but I can't because I, I know when I do that
or if I allow myself to do that, then I know what happens.
And so I can't do that.
And and then to to have those things defined
and to share them with some other people so that other people know
what the boundaries are.
Because, again, we can convince ourselves, well, yeah, I don't do that.
But in this case, yeah, it just makes the most sense.
And so I'm going to do it.
And then then we, we cross our boundaries and so, you know, there are things,
like, I won't
I won't ride alone in a car
with a woman that's not my wife.
And maybe other people can, but I, I'm not going to do that.
And sometimes it,
it makes it inconvenient and it might not be the most economical,
thing, but I just know
I'm not going to do that.
and so to have those boundaries in place, and it's not that I don't trust women.
It's like I, I know myself well enough to know that maybe I don't trust myself.
Right.
So but there again, it's that thing of taking responsibility
for this is who I am, I have
I need to know myself well enough to know these are things that I,
I just I'm not going to do because I don't
I don't want to put myself in a situation
that is where I'm vulnerable.
And and the truth of the matter is we're all vulnerable.
It doesn't it doesn't, yeah.
It doesn't matter how old we are, how what our position
is, there's we're all
we all need to be cautious and be careful.
So when we were talking about this
last night, you know kind of prepping some of these episodes and things.
The concept that came out is the devil's lack of creativity.
Could you explain that a bit more.
What are you referring to there and how does that apply to this?
Yeah, the devil is not very creative like he uses the same tools
over and over again.
and when you think about, like you think about people that you know, that
have failed, it’s probably going to be in one of three areas.
It's either money or power or sex or sexuality.
It's like those three things are the way or the places where the devil trips
people up.
And so the moral and ethical failures are usually related to,
dishonesty in relation to acquiring wealth and getting more money.
Or it's about,
having
power and positions of power and influence
or it's or it's, moral failure related to sexuality.
But we know what those tools are and we're not ignorant of them.
We know what they are.
and so we can be on guard in those areas
and just know ourselves well enough to know
where we're where we're vulnerable and take steps
to, to to guard against those, those things.
It's not like, people don't fail in areas that nobody's ever failed in before.
It's it's repetitive, stories.
You look at the stories and it's, it's there's common
themes in, in all of them.
So the person that, the person that,
has a position of power and has wealth is,
is in is in a, in a bit of a
vulnerable, position
And having an awareness of that,
if you find yourself in that situation say,
I think of that a lot with the wealth thing, you know
people that, you know, have a really successful
business, it’s so easy to Get distracted with those things say or what.
And of course, Jesus has a lot of things to say about wealth and how we use it.
is this a self-awareness thing where back to having
that community of people around you that that you trust and that can help
point out, hey, be careful here
am I, am I getting getting it right.
Exactly, yeah.
And that accountability
putting myself under the authority
of someone or recognizing that I am accountable to authority.
There are those. I don't make the rules.
I, I'm accountable to others and that is in
it can be in an accountability group.
But beyond that, it's also to the government and,
and those in, in leadership over me.
So the person who is the husband and father in his family, he's
the owner of his own business and he's a leader in the church,
can kind of be
at the top of, in every area of his life.
But he really also needs to recognize, no, I'm under authority and
and but if you're the person who makes all the rules,
you can also feel like, well, I can make exceptions to the rules
for myself, like other people need to do that.
But I, I can give myself an exception.
but it's a fallacy.
It's not really true.
a number of years ago, when I was in,
well of course, I was the husband
and father in my, my home, and I was in leadership, in the mission
organization, and I was in leadership in the church.
And I really felt a need for I need to remind myself that I am under authority.
So for three years,
I drove the speed limit,
not over the speed limit for three years,
and it drove me and everybody on the road crazy.
And, but it was a way of reminding myself
that I'm a person who follows the rules
and and I don't I don't want to be a person who lives, who always lives over
the edge of the rules just enough that I won't get punished.
And, I don't I don't like when my children do that.
I don't like when people in the organization or the church do that.
I don't like when people they know what the rules are, but they just live
just enough over the rules that that I won't do anything.
And I don't want to be that kind of person.
And I'm under the authority of the government.
So the speed limit is posted by the government.
And so I will I will drive the speed limit
just as a reminder to myself
that I am under authority and I need to obey.
I can't make exceptions to the rules for myself.
And so if we were really in a hurry, then my wife would drive. But,
That's that's actually that's pretty brilliant.
I like that story.
That's, that's a good reminder, I think, for all of us.
So what would you say are some of these, fields of deception
or these particularly fertile areas that the devil can manipulate
and deceive us into, into some of these things and and so forth.
Well, one can be a sense of identity who we really are.
And when we start to see ourselves as, well, if we're the leader of a church
or the leader of an organization, and we don't separate
who we are personally from that organization or that church,
and it's just kind of all becomes intermingled and it's like,
you know, so when people meet you, they think about,
well, Anabaptist Perspectives and, and if, if that becomes your identity,
then, you're vulnerable because you can be like, well, I'm
this person that, you know, does this and, and, and you separate
who you are personally from, it becomes morphed into the organization. And,
and I think that creates, a vulnerability.
and then also just loneliness.
And when we're cut off from people
and we don't have meaningful relationships and again, the pull of,
the, the desire of the sexual desire
is related to the desire for intimacy to be in meaningful relationship.
And, and so when we don't have those, then I think we're,
we're vulnerable to kind of a false satisfaction of,
of desire and, and and really pornography is just
a fake, intimacy.
And it's, it's not a true intimacy, but
it's sort of
does something to, to at least,
sate that desire for intimacy.
And so it's, so loneliness is,
is one of the issues.
And one of the things that happened with my dad was he got he got into a situation
where he didn't have a lot of meaningful relationships, which opened the door for,
for him to, to,
do what he did and get, get way off track.
so that was one of the,
the issues,
and then sometimes, like if we feel like,
well, I'm on the cutting edge, like I'm doing, I'm doing really,
brave things and I'm out there, I yeah, I do things that other people can't do.
I do things that not everybody does.
But I'm an adventurous person, or I'm, I'm innovative or I'm
an entrepreneur, and and I do these things that, that other people don't do.
But there there's boundaries to being on the cutting edge
and there's some cutting edges we shouldn't cross.
there's some things that that we shouldn't do.
And so just because we're adventurous people
or we're entrepreneurs, but
there's also the commitments
we have to to Christ and to our families and,
and so that can create a vulnerability if, if we just see ourselves
as, yeah, I, I do things that not everybody can that everybody does.
And, and I'm kind of, I'm kind of a unique person.
And then we can give ourselves permissions to do things
that that we would say, well, no, other people shouldn't do that.
this sense of exceptionalism. Yeah.
I'm exceptional or I as in, yeah, in the literal sense of
I am an exception to whatever boundaries or rules.
You know what I'm what I mean there,
which, sitting here in, in the studio talking about it seems like,
oh, that, that's silly, you know,
how would anybody ever think that about themselves?
And then when you're actually in the situation, suddenly I find myself
at least often thinking, oh, yeah, yeah, I this is fine, this is okay.
And, about whatever
a minor thing or oh, I'm an exception because blah blah blah of my position.
It's just really, really easy to do that.
You know.
And another one can be like if you're the founder
of an organization or if you're the, the,
the lead person
in a church,
you can feel like I put, I have put in so much energy,
I have sacrificed so much and
I just deserve some compensation.
yeah yeah. Exactly.
Yes I think of this in I do a lot of trainings
for different ministries and things as well.
And it's, it's so easy to do that we're teaching, you know, teamwork
and leadership and so easy when you're the leader of say a team.
Okay, the team is doing this thing and you put all this work into it, okay.
Now I don't
I don't have to actually be fully involved because I've already done my bit
and I could be an exception to whatever the thing may be.
And that that attitude, wow.
That can really lead places. That's not good.
You know?
So we've hit a couple of things in how the devil lacks creativity
and what are the areas of deception we have to guard against.
You've listed out different things as, to
help us in these situations.
So stability,
accountability and responsibility were all things you mentioned.
But I want to pivot slightly and say, what do we do when the worst does happen,
when there is some kind of failure, whatever that may be?
And again, this is so relevant and current right now.
I mean, it always has been, but it feels like particularly in the last
ten years, a lot of really high profile cases of.
Megachurch pastors or whatever, having so much responsibility
and authority in a church, and they abuse it and they manipulate it
to gain power or wealth or something else.
What do we do in that situation?
Well, one, first of all, the the, the highest priority
is the protection of people in our church or in our organization.
So in cases of abuse,
the first priority has to be
how do we stop whatever's happening?
How do we protect the vulnerable?
Because any, any group
that doesn't protect the women and children
in their group is destroying the next generation.
And it's and so the protection of the vulnerable
is primary.
And, an organization or a church
really needs to be a place where
women and children feel like it's safe
and that they have security and that they're not going to be
taken advantage of.
And so the first step is to make sure
that it stops
and that it ends now,
and that there's protection for those that are
have been affected or abused
by the person that is is, has failed.
and if that's sexual abuse
or abuse of power that there's boundaries put in place
and things are made sure that that's going to stop if it's,
related to theft of funds or embezzlement,
that things are put in place to make sure nothing else is lost, and
and that it's that everything, everything stops that's been happening.
And then
to work for,
to work for the
the healing of everybody involved, both
those who are have been abused and the person who is the abuser.
And sometimes we focus so much on
the person who's the abuser and deal with them,
that we don't get adequate help for those who have been abused.
And I would say in
my experiences
with this kind of thing in the past, if there's things that,
well, there are things that I regret and I wish I would have put more energy
into making sure that those who were
the victims of abuse really got
the help
that they they needed over the long term.
And,
so that is an important piece.
And then the person who has failed
needs, they needs like they
all the things that led them to fail need to be reversed.
So they need relationship.
And we can tend to say, oh, that's so disgusting.
I'm not going to talk to you. I don't have any...
You're just.
I mean, we can reject the person who's failed,
and then they become more isolated and and the very things that cause that,
that opened the door for them to fail in the first place are increased.
And so what they need is they need relationship
and they need people to come around them and,
and and to begin to define a path to redemption.
And that doesn't necessarily mean restoration
in every position and everything, but it does mean there's
there's life and there's hope and there's redemption.
And we start to to help people to take steps toward
toward redemption and the restoration of like,
how do they re-earn trust and and I think that sometimes people
who have failed, they have no clue of how
what they've done has the sense of betrayal that people have
and how it’s destroyed trust in their relationships and
and to help them to begin to say, okay, how can that be rebuilt?
How can I prove that I'm trustworthy, am I trustworthy, first of all.
And then and and sometimes people can,
and especially people in,
in, moral failure can be so smooth.
They're manipulative people to start with.
And their personalities can be manipulative.
And then sometimes they can work.
What they want to do is just quickly fix everything.
And yeah, okay, I'm good now, like, what's the checklist?
you know, or something? Yeah.
like, well, you know everything be forgiven.
And so I repented.
And so now you need to forgive me and just, you know, it's like, okay, now
I'm good. And nothing ever happened.
no it it's not it's not that simple.
And what it does is it sets up a scenario then for them to repeat the same thing
over and over again because people trust them.
And then they then they're in a position where they can just
they can just repeat it.
And, and I, I've just talked to, A number of men who
have, have failed morally and
and they’re
many, many of them are they’re repeat offenders.
Like, they just they they'll do the same thing again
and and it's and if there's too much trust
and not enough of accountability
and so they need that they need that path.
There is a path to redemption.
But it's not a quick.
Yeah. You're forgiven.
Everything's good now.
It's it's a path of proving and walking
in faithfulness day by day and step by step.
And with, with my dad.
I realized the next morning after he talked to me the night before,
I realized the next morning, like he somebody needs to help him figure out
how to put the pieces back together and how to get his life back on track.
And so
I sat down with him and
said, okay, tell me, like, tell me everything.
I want to know what's,
and what are what you've done and tell me the whole story.
Get give me the all.
And what can we do to start?
What do you want to do?
First of all, what's.
What do you want to do.
And and then how do we get there?
and are the is is there anything that we can do today
that will start the path back to where you want to, where you want to go,
and just a few small steps,
then begin to give some hope.
Yeah, this can be fixed.
And at first it looks like this huge mess and I've just destroyed my life.
And, my family doesn't know what everything is.
Everything's lost.
And and that's where people can take off and say, well, I'm out of here.
And, and, you know, I'll go start another life somewhere else.
but to just Put some
even small steps to begin to put the pieces back together
and start a path to where the person really wants, really wants to go
is, is important.
that sounds like a lot of work and a lot of courage
as well for for all parties involved.
It is it is a lot of work and
and it takes commitment of people that will walk with a person
through that journey of redemption.
And, and, you know, I like with my dad,
I was able to,
walk with him through that
journey of redemption. And
he recommitted his life to the Lord, and
and he, he,
did get put his life back together and
and so But it was it was a
it was a journey and it was a difficult journey.
It was painful.
And and it wasn't just a quick
fix or a steady path out, there were
other failures
along the way, and disappointments.
But it but redemption
is possible and and redemption is
is there and there's nobody that has out sinned the grace of God.
It's just
God's forgiveness is amazing.
And we've all experienced it.
And and it's there for those that, that,
that desperately need it. And.
So is there more on that you would have on
what we can do when, when the worst happens, you know,
be a part of that redemptive process and so forth.
You know, part of it is, like, I think in a, in a church or in
an organization, there can be a tendency to want to cover it over.
And, you know, if people find out about this,
it'll be embarrassing or it'll bring shame to, to us.
And but just transparency and honesty and and obviously they're not all
the details of everything that happened need to be known by everybody.
But there does need to be a level of openness and transparency to say,
this is what happened, this is what we're doing.
And these these are the steps we're taking.
And this is not acceptable
In our organization or in our church.
And, and, and establishing
some policies or protocols for if something like this happens,
this is what we do so that people know in advance
what is going to happen if,
if somebody fails, and so that you're not making it up
on the spur of the moment saying, okay, now what do we do?
Like just having like and knowing what the reporting requirements
are in your state and knowing what you're what you're required to do.
we had a,
sexual abuse case in an organization that I was in leadership in.
We didn't have a clear, clearly defined.
And I mean, this was decades ago.
We didn't have a clearly defined
protocol, what we would do.
And so we were discussing, do we report this
or do we just deal with it internally?
What do we do? And,
and so it took us about a week
to decide what we were going to do because there were different opinions.
And then when I went with the person who was the offender to the police
to report it, For the first 45 minutes,
I thought I was going to jail because I.
The police let me know that waiting a week to report something is not appropriate,
and that I should have been there within 24 hours.
And after
they realized that I was appropriately frightened
and that I understood what I had done and where I had failed,
then they turned their attention to the the person that I had brought in.
And, and so I realized, so then we established a protocol saying,
okay, like if something like this happens, this is what we will we will report it.
This is who we’ll report it to.
This is the time frame in which we’ll report it.
These are the things we're not going to protect anybody from.
From being arrested or prosecution.
We're not.
We're going to if somebody violates the laws, we're not.
We're going to let the police or whatever take
the action that that they're going to take.
And,
and one of our fears was that,
if we report it, then Children's
Aid is going to come in, take our children and put them into foster care.
And but in talking to the Children's Aid, people.
they were saying our concern is the protection of children.
So if we feel like you're going to protect your children, then we're not going to.
We're not going to take them.
But if we feel like you're not going to protect your children, then we will.
So if you tell us, you give us your protocol.
These are the things we will do.
If something like this happens,
then we'll monitor whether you're doing those things.
And as long as you're doing what you say you're going to do
and you're protecting the children, then we'd rather have you do it
than us.
And so there is some safety and and security in that as well.
But but yeah, knowing what you're going to do
and then if there's failure just following your protocols and,
and doing the things that, that need to be done.
So this is all a pretty heavy topic,
a pretty weighty thing that we, dare not take lightly.
As we bring this episode to a close, is there anything you'd like to, say?
In conclusion, what's something you'd like to leave with our audience?
Yeah.
One more thing on just in dealing with when there's a failure is recognizing that
it's not just like, let's say in the case of sexual abuse, it's
not just those who are sexually abused and the offender.
It's like everybody in the group is affected.
And realizing this has destroyed trust
in the whole group.
And if it's a leader, it's
like people have just lost
their trust in leadership and recognize
that we're in a we're in a pretty deep hole here,
and this is going to take time, and we're all going to have to work together
to rebuild trust. And it.
It's not just a few people, it's it's the whole group
that really needs healing and really needs restoration of of trust.
When those things happen.
There's always,
well, there's people that, there's people that judge and
and just reject everything and say, well,
that church or that organization, you know, they're a failure.
And and then there's people that justify and say,
no, no, really, they're they're good people.
And they, you know, everything's okay.
And, and and then there's, there's people that really have wise
advice and, and, and they, they acknowledge.
Yeah, it might be a good group of people, but there's also failure and
and that needs to be dealt with honestly.
And, and steps need to be taken for redemption and,
and restoration of of trust.
So as we bring this episode to a close.
what's, one thing you'd like to leave with our audience?
Yeah.
Well, when failures happen, there's those that judge
and those that justify and those that scorn.
And then there's wise counselors.
Yeah,
well, thank you Merle for taking the time to share about this.
This is a, heavy topic.
It's a lot to think about, and I just.
I guess
The only thing we can say is
that we would have the grace and wisdom for these things.
These are these are difficult challenges.
So I thank you for for coming on and sharing some of your own story as well.
I appreciate that.
Thanks for listening to this episode with Merle Burkholder.
If you found this episode helpful,
you should check out this other one that we did with Roseanne Bauman,
where she addresses the topic of how do we respond in situations of abuse.
If you like this podcast, leave us a rating and review.
It really does help more people find our content.
And of course, you can find everything
we've released over on our website at anabaptistperspectives.org.
Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch you in the next episode.
Thanks for listening to this episode with Merle Burkholder.
If you found this episode helpful, you can check out the other episodes
we did with Rosanne Bowman, which address the topic of
how do we respond in situations of abuse.
If you enjoyed this podcast, leave us a rating and a review.
It does help other people find what we're doing here.
And of course, you can find
our content on our website at Anabaptist Perspectives for good.
Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch you in the next episode.
High profile
cases of moral failure disappoint many of us.
In this episode, Merle Burkholder explains his personal experience
with this disappointment.
And how can we respond as individuals and churches?
Let's see.